


“Bryce Versus the Truth about Chuck”

by Polgarawolf



Series: The Truth About Chuck [1]
Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Alliances, Asset, Betrayal, Central Intelligence Agency, College, Con Artists, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Family Secrets, For Your Own Good, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Fulcrum, Grief/Mourning, Grifter(s), Handler(s), Hero Worship, Hostage Situation, Hurt, Intersect, Lies, Loss, Love, Love at First Sight, M/M, Manipulations, Masks, Mission(s), NSA, Order(s), Pain, Partnership, Possessive Behavior, Protective Bryce, Protectiveness, Questions, Secrets, Spies & Secret Agents, Stanford Era, Stanford University, Talking, Temptation, Triad - Freeform, True Love, Trust, Unrequited Love, Worry, broken trust, eidetic memory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-01
Updated: 2009-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-14 09:12:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polgarawolf/pseuds/Polgarawolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Summary:</b> This is a <i>Chuck</i> fanfic. I think of it mainly as a character study piece, myself, for Bryce Larkin (and, to some extend, for Chuck, himself, too), but I suppose that it is technically slash, though I don’t think it truly deviates from the show’s canon, all things considered. If you are not familiar with the (fairly) new TV show <i>Chuck</i>, then by all means, go forth and watch it, please. It is made of <i>awesome</i>!</p>
            </blockquote>





	“Bryce Versus the Truth about Chuck”

**Author's Note:**

> **Story/Author's Notes: 1).** This isn’t the result of my first ever _Chuck_ plot bunny, though it is my first written foray into the fandom world of _Chuck_. This plot bunny just happened to be the most persistent and to appear at a time I was particularly vulnerable to plot bunnies (i.e., when I was extremely upset about something and really shouldn’t have been indulging the lunacy of my head muse by allowing her to feed me a plot bunny for a new fandom that I probably shouldn’t be writing in).
> 
>  **2).** I unfortunately came somewhat late to the _Chuck_ fandom, not having discovered the show at all until this past February, when the second season was already about half over. I have seen all of season one (thanks to Netflix) and all of the episodes of season two that have aired since about the second week or so of February (including some of the ones I’d already missed on the first go round, thanks to reruns), and I believe this story still fits well within the canon, irregardless of the episodes I’ve missed seeing. A lot of the episodes stand mostly alone and it’s fairly easy to follow what’s happened, even if you’ve missed something, since most of the major elements of previous episodes eventually resurface in some way in the later episodes. If anyone has any kind of quibble with this based on something I may’ve missed from the first half of the second season, by all means, feel free to point it out. Just be prepared to explain why whatever I may’ve missed could be seen to invalidate any part of this story, okay?
> 
>  **3).** It made me happy to write this story. Please refrain from fussing at me about writing it. I know I should be working on a _**Star Wars**_ story (take your pick as to which one. I know there are at least four if not five I should seriously be working on, probably at this very moment) or the HP AU I’ve only written one part of or the _Criminal Minds_ series of short stories I never finished or, hell, anything but this. Life has been crappy lately. _Chuck_ makes me smile, folks, and, quite often, laugh myself silly. More people should watch this show. More people should write in this fandom. It’s a non-sci-fi show for sci-fi geeks. Trust me. It’s made of pure awesome. Writing this was cathartic, if only because it made me smile so very much. So please, _please, **please**_ refrain from grousing about how I wrote this during my self-imposed week away from the computer instead of working on something else, okay? Thanks!
> 
>  **4).** As far as I can tell (solely from plugging _Chuck_ in as an interest in the LJ search engine and then briefly looking at the names of the communities that came up), the trend in this fandom seems to be either to pair Chuck with his obvious romantic interest on the show (Sarah Walker), or else to pair him up with his second handler (John Casey). While I suppose I can understand why fans would do this (at least in the first instance), personally, I dislike the character of Sarah (she strikes me as a liar and a user and if she wants to learn how to be a real girl, she needs to do it by practicing on someone a lot less vulnerable than Chuck, in my not so very humble opinion) and I’m vaguely squicked by the idea of Chuck being with Casey (though I’ll admit that I started watching the show in the first place because of Adam Baldwin, who I remember fondly as Jayne Cobb from _Firefly_ and _Serenity_ ), and there’s just so much subtext and potential in the tangled relationship between Chuck and Bryce Larkin that frankly I don’t understand why more fans aren’t interested in the possibilities of Chuck/Bryce. I wrote this piece in part because I wish the show would do more with Bryce’s character and in part because I honestly think this piece would fit with the show without altering anything in it, an occurrence that so rarely happens with any of the plot ideas I ever have that I was so very stunned that I sort of had to write it, just to see if I was right about it not being AU.
> 
>  **5).** I tend to really suck at titles. Anyone having a better idea for a properly _Chuck_ -ish title for this little piece should therefore please feel free to pass it along as a suggestion, as the current title is rather makeshift!
> 
>  **6).** For those who may not know, _qamuSHáqu’_ is Klingon for “I love you very much,” whereas _bangwI’ SoH_ is Klingon for “You are my beloved,” and _t’hy’la_ is a Vulcan word that can translate as friend, brother, and/or lover.

　

　

**"Bryce Versus the Truth about Chuck"**

 

 

　

For all of his remarkable intelligence, Charles "Chuck" Irving Bartowski is also remarkable clueless about certain things.

Bryce Larkin is intimately familiar with Chuck’s cluelessness.

It’s one of the few real constants in life he relies upon.

Jill Roberts is a perfect example of Chuck’s cluelessnes. He never suspected that Bryce might have an ulterior motive for offering to introduce them and he certainly never suspected that the offer was a test that Bryce was desperately hoping Chuck would pass, by refusing the offer to be introduced to her. Of course, Bryce had been watching Chuck since the first day, working up his courage to introduce himself, and Chuck never noticed him before that day on the quad, well into the third week of classes, either, so . . . perhaps he shouldn’t have had his hopes up as high as he had, concerning Jill. (Arranging to be roommates was another test, and that one Chuck had at least passed, though he unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately is the more accurate term – continued to be utterly clueless, regarding Bryce’s ulterior motives.)

Their special private language is another good example of his best friend’s cluelessness. Chuck wanted it to be Vulcan – he thought it more appropriate, since they were friends and both started out as fans of the original _Star Trek_ series, and, even though the language wasn’t as fully developed as Klingon, between what was out there of it and Chuck (who could’ve easily doubled as a linguistics major), they could’ve easily adapted it enough to be wholly workable – but after Bryce stated that Klingon would be cooler because it was more manly, that was it. Chuck never tried to argue. He just got himself a couple of books on the language, sat himself down, and learned enough to be fluent in Klingon, so no one (or at least no one who wasn’t a diehard _Trek_ fan) could casually butt in on their more private (usually for purposes of plotting pranks and other mischief) conversations. Chuck never even suspected that Bryce might have a damned good reason to want to avoid speaking Vulcan around his best friend – most of said reason revolving around a certain word that could translate either as _friend_ , _brother_ , or . . . well, truth is, it could also mean something that Bryce was pretty damned sure every person in hearing or sight distance of him would have absolutely no problem whatsoever translating properly ( _Trek_ fan or not), except for Chuck himself, and, while terrified of what all those other people would (rightfully) think, regarding his feelings for Chuck, it was also somewhat troubling (in a _that kind of hurts my feelings_ sort of manner) to realize Chuck would inevitably hear the word as _friend_ only and never suspect any possible deeper meaning attached to it.

In any case, Bryce won the debate (without even really having to resort to arguing), so the issue never came up. He’s won a lot of potentially sticky arguments in this fashion, by counting on Chuck’s cluelessness and his amiability. He saved his friend from the Agency, by counting on it. (It broke his heart, to do that to Chuck, but he couldn’t – he just _couldn’t_ – let the Agency get a hold on him. It would’ve ruined everything good in Chuck, to have to live that kind of life. Bryce could do it. He wasn’t exactly a good person. He was made for that kind of subterfuge and violence. But Chuck? No. Never. Unquestionably not. Bryce would’ve died, before he let that happen.) Chuck didn’t even _try_ to fight. The closest he came to even questioning what Bryce had done was to try to ask why, and he was so shocked (and hurt and defeated and just plain shocky from the unexpectedness of the apparent disaster engulfing him) that he never even tried to push. He just took his things and left and that was it.

Bryce accounted it a major sacrifice on his part, to give Chuck up like that, but he _had_ to keep Chuck safe from the Agency and he knew of no other way to do that. (Years later, he would look back on that decision with pain and bitterness, faced with the all but impossible decision of either letting Fulcrum have the Intersect or sending it to Chuck. He _knew_ nothing good could ever come of bringing that kind of attention down on Chuck, but what else could he do? There was no one else trustworthy. _No one._ It _had_ to be Chuck. Or else destroy the Intersect to keep it from Fulcrum. And he couldn’t do that. As much as he wanted to, he just couldn’t. So . . . Chuck it was.) That desire – no, _need_ – to keep Chuck safe is why he wants so badly to get Sarah away from Chuck . . . or at least to get her to stop playing with Chuck’s heart.

He knows all about Special Agent Sarah Walker (neither part of which name is legally hers), and that woman is nothing but bad news for Chuck. If he’d had any idea they would send the moron who shot him and the partner he’d double-blinded and seduced to babysit Chuck, after the Intersect files were received, he doubts he would’ve been able to send them to Chuck at all. He would’ve had to’ve just let the whole Intersect be destroyed and bedamned to the Agency, the NSA, and Fulcrum as well. But he hadn’t known. And now Chuck’s safety is at least halfway dependent on that stupid bitch and bedamned if he’s going to let her hurt Chuck! She may be a good fighter and a more than decent shot and good on the kinds of covert missions that involve lots of bloodshed and little interaction with anyone not liable to end up in jail or a body bag, but she is _not_ a good agent. The only reason she’s even in the Agency is because she was an asset by default and someone thought that recruiting her as an agent would cement her loyalty enough to remove any threat to the country or to the Agency associated with her knowledge of her father. The woman had seven different affairs with her trainers and fellow trainees alone, that he knows of, and she was swearing undying love and devotion to Bryce only hours before his mission against the Intersect, so . . . he is well aware of just how weak and vulnerable she is, as an agent.

Sarah Walker finds three types of individuals nigh on irresistible, when it comes to her fickle heart. One is Bryce’s type (the über successful, über popular/adulated, über charismatic and intelligent sort, who never went after her in school and against whom she has something of a grudge despite her obvious fascination with such individuals); one is Chuck’s type (genuine and genuinely _good_ ); and one, frighteningly enough, is Major John Casey’s type (professional and seemingly untouchable superior officers, including both those of actual higher rank and those simply possessing greater experience than Sarah herself). If she doesn’t end up fucking up Chuck’s protective detail ten ways from Sunday and then some, Bryce will account it a miracle. She’s already seriously showing signs of falling for both Casey and Chuck . . . and, whether she means to do so or not, of toying with Chuck’s affections due to her desire both to be liked by Chuck and to appear professional and competent to Casey.

That pisses him the hell off. Chuck’s too damn good of a person for her to be toying with his affections like that. Granted, Chuck could be a little bit more careful of his heart, but in all honesty, she should damned well know better. It’s unprofessional and its cruel to take advantage of someone as friendly and open and transparent and prone to unsuitable attachments as Chuck is. (And lord, is that boy prone to unsuitable attachments! Chuck is just so damned friendly and he always thinks the best of everyone and it _never_ occurs to him to wonder if someone being friendly with him has ulterior motives of any kind.

Bryce had to take care of or chase off seven different people, in the approximately three and a half years he and Chuck were best friends, because they were trying to take advantage of Chuck’s somewhat attention-starved friendliness, given the years he’d suffered from a hugely overly protective sister and a ridiculously possessive "best" friend and the socially crippling label of being a super intelligent self-identified geek. Chuck genuinely likes people and he wants terribly for others to like him. His childhood wasn’t particularly inducive of a strong sense of self-worth – for which fact Bryce could’ve easily and quite cheerfully inflicted quite a lot of pain on Chuck’s parents, if he’d ever run across them before his own recruitment by the Agency. Even after he found out the truth about Chuck’s dad, his first instinct was to slap the man silly for leaving his children behind like that, and only an act of supreme self-restraint, coupled with the desire to keep Chuck from being hurt by his father or his father’s work any more than he already had been, kept him from giving in to that instinct – so he tends to go far out of his way to keep others happy, and, for Chuck’s own good, there had been some individuals Bryce had simply had to get out of the picture, if for no other reason than to keep his friend from being hurt.) And no matter what anyone else may’ve ever thought or might ever think, Chuck _was_ and _is_ his friend.

Chuck will _always_ be his friend. All not so innocently friendly yearnings aside, Chuck is the best friend Bryce has ever had, not to mention a far better friend than he could ever deserve. He began watching Chuck, waiting for an opening like the one on the quad, because he _wanted_ to be friends with the boy, puppy-dog eyes and blinding smile and tousled curls just begging to be touched aside. He was curious about Chuck. _Very_ curious. It was apparent, from the very first class they shared, that Chuck was, arguably, far more intelligent than Bryce – and Bryce was used to being the smartest person around, not just more well-educated or further along or containing more specialized knowledge or better read, but actually more intelligent – without even trying (half a dozen individuals in his school had, apparently, been moved by their parents to other schools, so they would have a chance at the title of valedictorian when graduation time came around, and Chuck hadn’t even bothered trying in most of his classes, with his language courses being the sole exceptions [after all, while bother to study a foreign language if the point weren’t to become absolutely fluent in it?]). It was . . . interesting, to meet someone able to not only retain so much information so effortlessly but also to effortlessly put that information to work in a useful manner.

Chuck wasn’t just another geek who liked sci-fi and computers and happened to have a photographic memory: if he remembered something, he learned it and he knew how to use it. Most of his pocket money at Stanford came from tutoring people in courses he never even took, blasting through the required texts in a couple of evenings and simply learning everything he might need to help someone studying out of those books. Chuck tested out of an obscene amount of courses (by the end of his first semester at Stanford, he had enough credits to qualify as a junior. If he’d graduated, he would have had upwards of a dozen minors, most of them gained almost entirely by testing out of roughly three-fourths of the courses necessary for each one. If they hadn’t kicked him out, he would’ve received a triple major – applied mathematics, computer science, and engineering – and probably could’ve talked the various professors he’d wowed with his linguistic skills into letting him set in on tests he would’ve needed to major in at least four or five of the languages he was fluent in, aside from English) and could have given almost all of the brothers at the fraternity house a serious run for their money, information-wise, given the amount of knowledge he’d gained in their various chosen fields of study (even the ones who took nothing outside of their specific field of major but the few required courses that justified the liberal arts part of a basic BA degree).

During his time at Stanford, Chuck was often mistaken for some sort of humanities or social sciences major, and the only areas he didn’t openly shine in (for fear of offending his girlfriend, a pre-med student double majoring in chemistry and biology) were the branches of physical science required for those going into the medical field. Even so, for a brother in need, he could recite tomes upon tomes of knowledge, quite a bit of it picked up at home from his sister, Ellie, who’d been pre-med once herself and was quickly working her way up to her medical residency (though Jill, the idiot never realized Chuck was faking ignorance of her courses of study. Of course, Jill was a self-centered idiotic bitch who regularly let Bryce . . . well, not sleep with her, exactly, but certainly everything else under the sun, aside from sleeping together – something he did, though his own actions sickened him, for the illusory sense of greater closeness to Chuck it engendered in him – so that’s not saying a whole lot). It was fascinating, how easily he assimilated new data, and extraordinary, how much information he could carry around in his head and how nonchalantly and yet precisely he could call on any one piece of it, at need. Bryce had been instantly captivated, his curiosity so strong and all-consuming that he had desperately wanted to be able to test and to chart the limits of Chuck’s abilities.

Which isn’t to imply that he wasn’t also physically attracted to Chuck. He was and he remains most definitely attracted to the slightly younger man. Bryce has had more practice in subduing "inappropriate" responses to his (quite passionate and never quite entirely repressible) attraction to Chuck than with any other single person – or indeed any ten or twenty or even, hell, _thirty_ others, to be honest. Chuck pushes almost every single one of his buttons effortlessly, and would push all of them if only he were a little bit more self-confident. Those huge, dark, melting eyes, that honey-glazed skin, those unruly dark curls, the way he smiles, the way he laughs, the way he combines a certain practicality of motion with exuberantly wide gestures . . . yeah, Chuck is pretty damned close to perfection, as far as Bryce is concerned. His fantasies used to look like Chuck, when he was in high school, and part of the reason why he first noticed Chuck at all had to do with how oddly _familiar_ that made him seem, when Bryce first laid eyes on him.

As clichéd as the whole tall, dark, and handsome thing might be, Bryce would be the first to admit how powerful the draw of someone just like that truly is. Hell, he’s traded on it before himself, even though he’s actually not all that tall (being just shy of six feet) and his rather pale skin and light blue eyes tend to detract from the whole "dark" bit and he’s almost more pretty than he is handsome. He’s close enough to pass, for some, though it makes him feel ridiculous to be described thus when he knows that Chuck is so much more so than he is or ever could be. After carefully establishing a friendship with Chuck, he spent a good solid three years constantly doing everything he could to convince Chuck just how appealing and lovable and, yes, dammit, outright special he is. He’s not really sure Chuck ever fully believed him and he’s pretty damned sure that Chuck lost pretty much all of the self-confidence he’d gained, when he had to leave Stanford, which is a damned shame, considering that Chuck’s a born leader if anyone is. He has charisma and true warmth and caring in spades, and, in a more perfect world, would be guiding and nurturing and leading to triumph some global-wide corporation or perhaps even in office somewhere, for some community that truly loved and idolized him, instead of working in a Buy More and suffering through having had the Intersect downloaded into his head.

Chuck deserves so much more that sometimes Bryce is helplessly torn between wanting to rage against the shittiness and unfairness of life on Chuck’s behalf and wanting to cry and beat his head violently against the nearest hard surface for the rather large part he personally played in screwing up Chuck’s life. Chuck is the most exceptional person Bryce has ever met in his life, and it seriously pisses him off that so many other people – including Chuck, himself – fail to realize just how utterly special and unique and what an absolute (and undeserved!) gift he is. The very first thing Bryce had figured out about Chuck at Stanford, after arranging that meeting on the quad, was that Chuck _meant_ it. The kind, easy-going nature, the desire to help, the unabashed joy in discovering or in mastering something new – whether about Boolean algebra, a classic video game, or the person someone just happens to be with – Chuck meant it _all_. All that sincerity that other people always seem to try so hard to project? Chuck actually had it. Has it, still, despite all the shit that the world’s thrown at him. Yet, he didn’t (and still doesn’t) realize how incredibly _rare_ that makes him. Or what an absolute treasure, that makes him.

It didn’t take long for Bryce to figure out that all of that truth – that awkward, endearing, puppy-dog clumsy, bursting-with-excitement sincerity – came right from Chuck’s capacity to love. Not just love as in pretty fluttery feelings, but the kind of love that makes a body see the world differently, the kind of love where a person can look at a world that’s full of deceit and exploitation and loss, and still find hope in it away. The kind of love that can let someone like Chuck genuinely be able to see the successes of others with as much happiness as if they were his own: the kind of transforming love a person might read about in philosophy class, where actions are made out of the belief that "you are my other me." The kind of love that nears excess, and seeps out because it can’t possibly be contained, and makes you love everything, makes you feel genuine _joy_ at a cool algorithm or a neat idea for a new computer code or a nice conversation about Klingon poetry.

To make matters worse, Bryce could tell that Chuck plainly hero-worshipped him. He thought that Bryce was the cool one, the important one, the one who should be looked up to and emulated, in their little friendship. His regard for Bryce was certainly lot higher than Bryce could have ever possibly deserved. But it was nothing compared to how Bryce adored Chuck. Bryce knew it was absurd, knew it was downright sickening, the way his chest tightened and his whole body felt warm whenever he saw Chuck smile (which, thankfully, was often), but he just couldn’t help it. Even though he knew it was the pathetic, the way he could simultaneously laugh and get deliciously dirty ideas when Chuck would do things like that mock-sexy dance of his, whenever a song he liked came on the radio (and, though Bryce’s favorite author claims that a person can’t laugh and be aroused at the same time, dear God, did Bryce ever know differently), somehow, whenever he was near Chuck or thought about him, he just couldn’t bring himself to care enough to try to stop himself. He knew it was stupid, the way they would sometimes play with action figures like they were both still little kids, but Bryce’s never-ending trail of hired caregivers and boarding schools had hardly constituted a childhood and Chuck’s childhood (except for Ellie and Morgan) had just been a series of disappointments, so he was determined that they would grab any and all chances for happiness where and when and how they could, no matter what it might look like to anyone else.

Of course, Bryce had known, rationally, that he really should stop thinking about Chuck that way, that he was behaving like a lovesick idiot and (far worse) liable as not to give himself away and lose the only person in his life who’d ever truly mattered, if he weren’t careful. But the thing was, even though Bryce has always been pretty good about stepping back from his feelings and looking at things objectively, even then, even when he stepped back as far as was freaking humanly possible, Chuck _still_ came off as sweet and full of joy and brimming over with faith in the world – basically all of the things that Bryce wouldn’t ever have, wouldn’t ever _be_ , except with Chuck, his giddiness and delight spilling out over Bryce, spreading over him, like a virus that he physically did not possess the ability to be at all sorry he’d caught – and, no matter how often he chastised himself to stop behaving like some mooning adolescent moron or how sternly he lectured himself (to the point, sometimes, of making himself literally sick, pale and shaking with fear, at the possibility of losing Chuck) over the need to be more careful, to get control over himself and to behave like a rational adult, he just couldn’t make himself stop being in love with Chuck, no matter how hard he tried.

No. Some emotions cannot be controlled or ordered or even fully contained, no matter how much logic or rationality or necessity is thrown at them. Chuck has enthralled Bryce from the moment he found out that Chuck not only knew but effortlessly, indefinitely retained and could put to use far more practical and theoretical knowledge than Bryce would’ve ever even dreamed of mastering, and the fact that Chuck’s also a genuinely _good_ person and unbelievably gorgeous and appealing and loveable and dear God in heaven worthy and more than worthy of every good thing in life and then some . . . well, all that’s just more reason to love him. Bonuses, as it were. Right along with Chuck’s cluelessness. And until he’s a little more sure of how Chuck might respond to some knowledge, Bryce would prefer to keep things that way, with his best friend remaining utterly oblivious to all of Bryce’s ulterior motives . . . which is precisely why he tried the old trick of a code phrase ("We’ll always have Omaha!") on Sarah, to try to get her away from Chuck, and why he finally made himself say something to Chuck about what a phenomenally bad idea it would be for her to become emotionally involved with Chuck.

Sarah’s father was a grifter, a con artist who got taken into protective custody (well, arrested, to tell the truth. The protective custody was a deal, and it involved jail time, to get him out of reach of those he’d made his enemies) as an asset after one of his schemes went sideways. Sarah was his accomplice, his little helper, for most of her childhood and teenage years. The Agency recruited her for her ability to lie and bedamned if she isn’t so good at it that even she seems to forget, sometimes, that she’s only pretending to be the kind of person who’d, say, work in the food industry at a Californian mall, date of member of the local Buy More’s Nerd Herd, and be given the kind of family heirlooms that tend to eventually presage the offering of rings and the tolling of wedding bells.

She’s almost _too_ good at what she does – lie and use people to further her own agenda, as a member of the CIA – to tell the truth, and sometimes Bryce isn’t sure that she’s entirely stable or sane. She puts masks on and takes them off again just a little bit too easily, even for an agent. Everyone she’s ever taken in with her wholesome act or her dumb infatuated blonde routine has been utterly convinced that she was truly a good person and deeply in love, that she was either the one or else someone destined to be around for a very long time, at least, someone who could be depended on to be around and to do just about anything for her beloved, and has subsequently been left high and dry, usually in either such a compromised position or else so devastated by her sudden betrayal that she’s emerged unscathed and smelling like a rose each time. Bryce is one of the few who’s actually had the temerity to plot behind her back and to essentially leave her high and dry and hurting from the sting of betrayal and abandonment. He’s determined not to let her use and abandon and hurt Chuck the same way she would’ve eventually done to him, if Bryce had only given her the chance.

Chuck’s entirely too trusting and too liable to become attached for his own damned good. (Which is mostly the fault of his idiotic parents, Bryce knows, and, if it were up to him, he would’ve already hunted the both of them down and explained, in terms impossible to ignore, just why scarring Chuck for life by never being there for him was an extremely shitty thing to do and a very bad idea. Not even Stephen Bartowski’s desire to keep his children safe constitutes a good enough excuse, in Bryce’s opinion, though it’s certainly better than the nothing Chuck’s mother offered . . . and, if he’s being perfectly honest, isn’t much different than Bryce’s own line of defense, when it comes to his treatment of Chuck.) If there were one thing Bryce could change about Chuck, then, for his own good, it would be to make him a little bit more wary of people who obviously only mean to use him. (He can’t quite bring himself to want to make Chuck less trusting of people in general. It would take some kind of vital innocence away from him, to make Chuck cynical and untrusting enough to always doubt people’s intentions towards him. Among the many things he’d hated about what he had to do, to keep the Agency from getting its filthy mitts on Chuck at Stanford, had been the fact that he was going to end up making Chuck distrustful of anyone wanting to be friends, at least for a while, on account of how Bryce, his best friend, would’ve seemed to so callously betray him.)

Chuck’s certainly not stupid. He must know that Sarah’s orders regarding the Intersect are the sole reason keeping her in his life, that she most likely never would’ve looked at him twice if he hadn’t been brought to her attention by the specific mandate of her mission. He just . . . he _wants_ to believe that Sarah could really like him for himself and want to be with him solely because of that, and not just for the mission’s sake. Plus, he really doesn’t want to disappoint his sister, Ellie, who honestly believes that Chuck and Sarah are a real couple and that they’re good together, and who desperately wants Sarah to be the one for him, since she thinks Sarah is good for Chuck’s sense of self-confidence and his drive and ambition. Perhaps more importantly, though, because Ellie genuinely believes that Chuck deserves someone who makes him happy, she wants Sarah and Chuck to be together, because she thinks that Chuck is happy with Sarah.

Ellie used to be a lot more observant than she is. A _lot_ more. As far as he knows, she’s the only one who ever suspected that Bryce felt more than just mere friendship for Chuck. Of course, the fact that she observed him in a weak moment did nothing to convince her otherwise. He should have known better than to indulge himself like that. It had done nothing but bring him more pain, in the long run, both because it had made Ellie care for him enough that she’d been that much more hurt and ferociously angry with him, when he’d gotten Chuck thrown out of Stanford, and because it had given him a glimpse into the kind of life he so desperately wanted with Chuck, even though he’d known, even then, that he’d most likely never get to have that life (much less deserve to have it).

Just because he was home with Chuck over Thanksgiving Break from school (and really, he should’ve known better than to agree to that. It just – it was too hard to tell him no, when he asked. Even that first Thanksgiving, Bryce knew how Chuck felt about his family, which had basically been reduced to just Ellie and his old friend, Morgan. Bryce could easily see that Chuck loved them far more than he loved himself. And it wasn’t just his decency or his _joie de vivre_ that made him love so fiercely: it was a purity of devotion and an overwhelming rush of something that Bryce could see in Chuck’s eyes when he talked about them.

So when Chuck invited Bryce home for the holidays, casually telling him, "You’re family, too," Bryce had barely been able to breathe, because he could see no guile in Chuck, and he knew that, though it had been easy for Chuck to love him like family, it wasn’t because it was a casual love. And as Bryce thought about how their relationship had grown in the brief months since they’d met, it had become clear to him that Chuck was being utterly honest. Chuck had decided that Bryce was family, that Bryce was one of that tiny circle of unutterably precious loved ones, and so Bryce simply had not been able to turn away, to refuse to go home with him. And Bryce had never quite been able to think of himself in the same way, after that) and Chuck had fallen asleep on the couch in the midst of their **_Star Wars_ ** marathon (the middle of _Attack of the Clones_ really is a snooze fest, especially if you’re watching the films in the order they were made, not the chronological order they go in) and slumped right over until he was laying with his head pillowed on Bryce’s thigh . . . that was no reason to start carding his fingers through his best friend’s curls.

It was foolish. Sentimental. Dangerous. Ellie came home early and found him drowsing through the credits, hypnotized by the rhythm he’d set, fingers carding and recarding through those loose dark curls. He’d tried playing it off like it was nothing, but Chuck shifted in his sleep halfway through, arm curling possessively around his "pillow," and Ellie had seen Bryce’s face in a painfully unguarded moment of longing. Otherwise, he’s pretty sure he could’ve played on how out of it he was and gotten her to dismiss it as nothing but an absentminded gesture of nonspecific affection.

One of his few truly weak moments, and of _course_ it had to happen in front of Elinor Bartowski. He’d feared for his life, for a few moments, after he’d turned Chuck in for cheating. She’d driven all the way up there to confront him, three days after Chuck had left to go home, and he’s pretty damned sure it only took her that long to pay him a visit because Chuck was too devastated to be left alone until he finally passed out from exhaustion. He’s fairly certain that only her Hippocratic oath kept her from physically attacking either him or Jill – whom she had the misfortune to discover in his room at the frat house, in what was essentially the aftermath of one of their . . . encounters (and God knows it wasn’t the first. He’d had Jill dozens of times so near to when she’d been with Chuck that she was still wet from him, for pity’s sake! Before, though, he’d always taken great care to make sure no one could possibly see or suspect anything, and this time . . . well, this time, he was too upset to take proper precautions) – and the way she tore into them, especially him . . . well, he really would’ve preferred to be physically attacked, to tell the truth. A beating would’ve hurt far less and done a lot less damage, in the long run.

It hadn’t exactly been a secret beforehand that Jill was a bit of a skank – half the frat house had tried to get Chuck to break up with her and/or to at least consider going out with somebody else at least once, at some point, Bryce included, as Jill had been observed flirting heavily with, going off with, or otherwise making out with/fucking no less than a doze different random guys by various members of the fraternity the four times she’d told Chuck she wanted to slow down and possibly think about seeing other people (and the count was actually closer to thirty-seven different bed partners, not counting Bryce, according to Bryce’s calculations. He’d kept a close eye on her, if for no other reason than to keep Chuck from walking in on the aftermath of one of her random weekend party hookups). Everyone who knew Jill thought that Chuck deserved better than Jill, but Chuck had such a low sense of self-esteem and was just so grateful to be noticed and, or so he thought, loved that he wouldn’t hear of "betraying" his girlfriend by ever considering anyone else – but after Elie was through with them the entire frat house thought that Bryce was some kind of freak who’d turned on Chuck because he wanted him and Chuck didn’t want him back and that he’d turned to Jill in some kind of sick effort to almost sort of _become_ Chuck, once he’d gotten Chuck out of the way.

It really hadn’t helped matters any. He’d had to move out of the frat house and eventually stop seeing Jill altogether (with their "relationship," as such, only lasting as long as it did because Jill, for some reason, seemed determined to be his new girlfriend, for some reason) and only his Agency connections kept him from either being thrown out of the fraternity entirely and perhaps even hounded into leaving the university or else being made a target of "random" thievery and violence. More than a few of the fraternity brothers who’d been friendly with Chuck certainly tried to do a number on him (he nearly accidentally killed a couple who broke into his new apartment about half a month after he moved out of the frat house, thinking that he was being attacked when it fact it was just a couple of angry, loyal idiots planning on trashing his stuff and maybe roughing him up a little, to pay him back for turning on a fellow fraternity brother), and that made things even worse, in a way, because afterwards they were all convinced that he was psychotic, and trying to clean up/hush up the whole mess did a helluva number on his cover.

The Agency came within about a hair’s breadth of yanking him out of there irregardless of the damage it would’ve done to his long term cover, and only a lot of fast talking on his part (and volunteering for an insanely dangerous mission over Spring Break that year) kept him in Stanford for the rest of his final semester. He was relieved when it was all over: not only did literally every place he went to on or around that campus remind him painfully of Chuck and make him ache with loss, it got very old very quickly to see nothing but angry and disdainful and/or pissy, frightened faces everywhere he went. Professor Fleming ended up nearly getting hauled up on review, for dismissing Chuck solely on Bryce’s say-so, and that lost him that source of reliable backup, which also hurt. But having to listen to Ellie rip him to pieces at the top of her lungs was far worse than any effect of the reaming out from the professor or the anger and fear of his frat brothers, in part because he simply couldn’t argue with her about so many of her suppositions and conclusions.

He _was_ in love with his best friend. He _was_ screwing around with his best friend’s girlfriend in order to feel closer to Chuck, more like Chuck, to preserve an illusion of Chuck still being in his life. He _had_ lied about the test answers he’s deliberately accused Chuck of using to cheat when he knew – he _knew_ – that Chuck had an eidetic memory and no need to resort to cheating to ace any kind of test he might take. He _had_ betrayed Chuck and gotten him kicked out of Stanford – in essence ruining his life, at least for the immediate future – and he refused to show any remorse about it. That he couldn’t afford to show any remorse because he’d bullied the Agency recruiter into helping him frame Chuck for cheating because it was the only thing he could think of to do, to keep Chuck safely away from the Agency and that kind of life, would remain facts forever unknown to Ellie Bartowski, and, even if he could have risked trying to explain, he’s not sure it would’ve done any good. She likely would have deemed the amount of pain and damage Chuck suffered to his ego to be far too high a price to pay and demanded that he find some other way to keep her little brother safe. And the real crux of the issue is that he’s not sure he could have honestly disagreed with her.

Panic had made him conceive of the mad scheme to frame Chuck for cheating and so get the Agency to dismiss him as a possible asset or agent to recruit. The longer he’s had to think about it and the more time he’s spent lying awake at night seeing that empty, defeated look in Chuck’s devastated eyes, though, the more certain he’s become that he botched this badly and will never be able to fix it, that he’s hurt Chuck so badly in the name of saving him that he’s created a situation where it’s safe to say that the disease is no worse than the cure . . . and where the cure may’ve even been worse than the disease. Chuck’s sense of self-worth has never been all that strong to being with and, given that Chuck really didn’t have anyone around to help him pick up the pieces of his shattered life (Morgan and Ellie don’t count. Morgan’s a self-centered jerk who’s really only friends with Chuck because of what Chuck can do for him, and Ellie, well . . . for all her good intentions, Ellie would’ve been a constant source of shame and self-flagellation for Chuck, given how horribly he would’ve felt for letting her down), Bryce really is afraid that he may have broken something irreparable in Chuck, in his clumsy attempt to help keep him safe and whole and innocent of the Agency.

(In his weaker moments, Bryce wonders if it might not have been better to let the Agency recruit Chuck, not as an agent, but as an asset. As Bryce’s asset. He could have kept Chuck safe and happy as his handler and maybe even made Chuck understand just how much he cared, how deeply his feelings for him ran. They could’ve worked together as a team, with Bryce doing the dirty work so Chuck would never have to truly live with the reality of an agent’s life, and everybody could’ve been happy. Hell, even Ellie could’ve been happy. The Agency would’ve helped spin a good cover story to keep an asset as valuable as Chuck safe and Chuck probably would’ve had that career he always seemed to want, as a rich and successful software magnate, on the side, as his cover, just as Bryce ended up as a well-paid accountant as part of his cover. And if, by some miracle, Chuck came to return Bryce’s affections, well . . . that’s where being based out of California would surely have proven to come in handy. Sure, Stephen Bartowski would have been mad as hell, but if it was Chuck’s decision . . . well, honestly, what could even someone as resourceful as Orion have done, to stop Chuck from doing what he wanted to do?)

Coward that he is, though he’s hoped that he was wrong about how badly he may have hurt Chuck, he never could actually bring himself to find out, one way or another, if he might be right, by checking up on Chuck. (And, too, he really hadn’t trusted his control around Chuck well enough to run the risk of a possible face to face meeting. He’d only _just_ managed to let Chuck go from Stanford without breaking and telling him the truth about everything. He was afraid that if he checked up on Chuck and found himself either unable to avoid or to resist an actual meeting and if he found himself faced with Chuck’s pain – or even worse his righteous anger – over Bryce’s betrayal, he’d fold like a proverbial deck of cards and spill everything, from his own recruiting and his desperate love for his best friend to his terrified and probably unbelievably foolish and really badly botched attempt to keep Chuck from being recruited, for his own good.) In an odd way, sending Chuck the Intersect had been his way of trying to make up for whatever mistakes he may’ve made, in trying to save Chuck from the Agency. He’d suspected that Chuck, with his visually-focused eidetic memory, could function as a human Intersect, and wanted his friend to have a chance to prove just how capable and special he truly is, if it came down to it and the copy he was taking (the only hard copy left in existence) was about to be destroyed.

He was having to improvise on the fly, though, unable to trust anyone, and, once again, as it turned out, he didn’t really think things through properly. Or at least he didn’t account for that sonuvabitch Major Casey shooting him and those incompetent assholes letting Fulcrum get their hands on him and essentially bring him back to life (or maybe just save his life. He knows the technology to bring someone back – at least under certain circumstances – exists, but he’s a little unclear as to what actually happened, still). _He_ was supposed to be the one to tell Chuck about the Intersect and why he was the perfect host for the program, just as he was the one who was supposed to be guarding Chuck and acting on his "flashes" to see to it that the bad people like Fulcrum and the Triad and others like them couldn’t hurt anyone else or threaten America.

He could happily murder John Casey for shooting him and putting him in a situation where he had to take Chuck hostage to even get a chance to speak to him. (He could especially quite cheerfully and painfully murder the man, seeing as how he had to half lie to Chuck about why he chose to send the Intersect to him in the first place. See, Chuck is the only person Bryce trusts unconditionally, but that’s not even half of the reason why, in the end, he chose to do what he did. He sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything about Chuck’s eidetic memory or the fact that he inherited some of his genius from his father anywhere that Casey or Sarah or any other Agency or NSA agent might overhear, though, and he certainly wasn’t going to try to explain about Stanford and his regret over how badly he screwed things up for Chuck when he’d only wanted to save him from being recruited – and ruined – by the Agency where anyone else could ever possibly overhear, and if not for that idiot Casey shooting him, he never would’ve been in a position where it wasn’t safe to say anything beyond a declaration of absolute trust in Chuck.)

A body can only say so much, even with Klingon and most of four years of shared history to help slip a few things in between the few spoken words he could safely manage to pass along. Chuck seemed more hurt and confused and angry than anything – a lot more upset than Bryce would’ve expected, not to mention defensive as all get out – but there was a tried resignation lurking in the back of his warm brown eyes that Bryce hated to see, like he expected Bryce to screw him over and turn his life upside down whenever the whim struck and assumed that there would be no defending against the treachery, whenever it finally came. And all clichés aside, it hurt like a dagger to his heart, to realize that, even before he had to resort to taking him hostage, Chuck was already bracing himself against the possibility of another betrayal from Bryce. He knew he’d hurt Chuck, but he was also knew _Chuck_ , and he couldn’t even begin to fathom the possibility that Chuck might not have gone digging into the past, and turned up Bryce’s real reason for his actions, at Stanford. The possibility that Chuck might very well know why Bryce had done what he did and yet still expect to be met with treachery . . . well, it _hurt_.

It also limited Bryce’s options far more than he liked, since it meant that Chuck, for all his willingness to still try to think the best of people, didn’t really entirely trust him, anymore, which in turn meant he couldn’t expect Chuck to go along with him, if he offered to take him away from his handlers. Despite knowing he was only a mission to them, Chuck seemed to trust Casey and Sarah to keep him safe – to be attached to them, even, though Casey’s willingness to shoot first and either ask questions later or eschew them altogether clearly made him nervous – and, given both Chuck’s wariness of him and certain promises Bryce had made, in order to gain the trust and information he needed, not just to finally get to the Intersect but to become involved with the Intersect program in the first place, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do (especially not in front of witnesses), to win that trust back, until after he’d at least cleared his name with Chuck’s handlers . . . which he therefore immediately began to work towards doing.

Chuck’s enviousness and bitterness over Bryce’s former so-called relationship with Sarah Walker surprised him, until he finally thought of it in terms more like what that idiotic alleged best friend of Chuck’s from home, Morgan Grimes, would’ve seen it, as yet another example of Bryce getting the girl and Chuck being left behind in the dust. He could’ve smacked himself, then, for not expecting that and altering his behavior so Chuck would understand that Sarah wasn’t someone Bryce took seriously as a potential mate but rather someone he temporarily wanted around for what she could bring to the table that could be of use to Bryce. He’d had several girlfriends in college, all of them short term flings who’d given him something he wanted, something of use, and then exited the picture just as quickly as they’d entered it, and he wanted Chuck to know that Sarah was just another name on that list, not to believe that she was someone Bryce truly cared about.

Asking her to go into hiding with him had ended up leaving a bad taste in his mouth (especially when she’d changed her mind at literally the last minute), precisely because Bryce had realized he’d be giving Chuck the wrong idea and because he’d feared (apparently with good reason) that making Chuck believe that Bryce truly cared for Sarah would make Sarah that much more desirable to Chuck, since making her like him would, in some odd way, validate him as both a person and as a worthy asset to the Agency. It raised her importance in Chuck’s eyes, which has only served to cause more trouble and make Bryce even more determined to get her away from Chuck. (One of these days, if he can’t get rid of her some other way, he’ll have to see to it that she’s found by Chuck in a compromising position with, say, Major Casey, so she’ll lose that elevated position of prestige and power in Chuck’s mind.) The only halfway decent thing to come out of the whole debacle (aside from the lovely little interlude where he got to "kidnap" Chuck at the facility and he had an unquestionable excuse to hold Chuck just as tightly and as closely as he wished. That muscle/sensory memory is one he’s called upon often since, and imagines he’ll keep on doing so for quite some time to come) was hearing (and seeing, a little, out of the corner of his eye) Chuck faint dead away with horror and shock when Casey shot him _yet again_ and then seeing the unabashed flood of relief in his eyes when Bryce had sat up and revealed the bulletproof vest he’d been wearing beneath his shirt.

That gave him some hope, even in the middle of such a disastrous mess. That Chuck could still care whether or not Bryce lived or died, that he could be overcome with horror at the thought of Bryce shot and shake with relief to see him virtually unharmed . . . well, sappy as it may sound, it made other things somehow seem less important, and that made him feel oddly light, as though an enormous weight had been removed from his shoulders. For at least a few moments, Bryce had been able to breathe freely again, as he hadn’t been able to for years . . . since before he fucked up so completely, at Stanford, and lost Chuck and his unstinting friendship and unconditional trust. He’d thought he’d never breathe again, for a few moments, when Chuck was the one getting shot, later on, even though he’d known that Chuck was wearing a protective vest. He never _ever_ wants to feel that again, and _that_ is why he’s determined to separate Chuck from his moronic handlers, especially Sarah.

Seeing Chuck and Sarah is like watching Chuck and Jill all over again, only without the added comfort of knowing Sarah is an irredeemably bad person and will deserve anything he might ultimately do to her, to keep her away from Chuck. He’d had plans, for how he could deal with Jill, all of them based on his absolute knowledge of her uncorrectably selfish, greedy, and ultimately immoral nature. Jill was a self-absorbed bitch even in college and it surprised him not a whit to discover she was with Fulcrum: Sarah, in spite of all of her flaws (and despite clearly being far more in love with the idea of Chuck and the kind of normalcy he seems to represent to her than actually genuinely loving Chuck, in Bryce’s opinion) at least _tries_ to think past herself, even if she mostly fails. In a way, that makes it worse, because Chuck can see how hard she struggles to understand what it means to be in a normal relationship and how hard she tries, sometimes, to be more than just a CIA operative with a mission, despite how desperately she wants to serve something larger than herself.

She’s just . . . she’s weak, is what she is. If she weren’t so weak, he wouldn’t mind having her be one of the ones guarding Chuck half so much. (Really. Why else should he care that she’s one of the ones entrusted with Chuck’s safety? It’s not as if he actually had any feelings for her. They were fairly good partners and he supposes he liked her well enough, as a person, but he never really trusted her, and seducing her was more a means to an end than anything else. It kept her happy and too distracted to notice he was essentially playing at being a double agent and that was all he’d really cared about, back then.) But between her not being able to decide who she wants to impress more and being vulnerable to all kinds of potential double agents and/or bad guys and Chuck’s vulnerability because of her weakness and her fickleness, Bryce just wants her _gone_ , and it’s getting to the point where he doesn’t care what he might have to do, to make sure she goes away and stays away.

He’s even started to seriously contemplate snatching Chuck from his bodyguard handlers, and it’s a little bit frightening to think about how easily he could probably do it. The only really difficult bit would be getting around Casey, and he’s already thought out half a dozen different ways he could either bypass the bugs, get into Chuck’s bedroom, and sneak him out, or else arrange for a call to the Nerd Herd that would get Chuck out alone where he could snatch him. Chuck’s not exactly too pleased with Bryce, nowadays, but he’s almost positive he could get Chuck to cooperate and come with him without even having to resort to lying. Much. And hey, if all else fails, that’s what tranquilizers and/or subtle threats that Chuck doesn’t have to know he’d never follow through on are for, though he’d prefer not to have to resort to such methods if he doesn’t have to (and, frankly, suspects that it won’t be necessary, if he handles things right, if only because of Chuck’s response to his use of Klingon, earlier).

If he really wanted or needed to get Chuck out of that place and out from under his watchers, Bryce could do it. Easy. And he has enough funds and resources squirreled away that it wouldn’t really matter all that much that doing so would immediately make him a marked man. The thing is, as much as he hates the idea of Sarah and Casey watching over Chuck, he’s also pretty sure that, for the moment, it’s at least as safe for him there as he would be anywhere that Bryce could arrange for him to be. Plus, even with the whole Sarah factor added in, he’s pretty sure that Chuck’s happier where he is, since he’s basically still at home . . . at least for now. The moment he gets wind of the Agency taking Chuck into protective custody is the moment he puts plans in motion to kidnap his friend. If he ever even _suspects_ that Brigadier General Beckman plans on making Chuck permanently obsolete by getting another computerized Intersect program up and running, so she can justify having Chuck permanently dealt with, he’s taking out her, her NSA toadies (including Casey) and her Agency toadies (including Sarah, if necessary), and he’s taking Chuck and running to a place where the Agency and NSA will never be able to find them, much less hurt Chuck ever again.

If he’d known that this was a probability before, he probably would’ve already taken Chuck and run for the hills. As it was, he managed to help arrange things so that the second Intersect caught a very specific Fulcrum virus and crashed and burned without anybody twigging to the fact that he was involved, but it was a near thing, and he’s not running that kind of risk with Chuck’s life again, no matter how much Chuck might want to stay near Ellie and Morgan and his other friends and family. (Plus, he’s not sure he trusts that the General has really given up on trying to get another Intersect program up, no matter what she’s said about it being an unnecessary risk so long as they have Chuck. The General hates Fulcrum with a passion, and she wants so badly to beat them that there are very few things he wouldn’t put past her, when it comes to her trying to achieve that goal.) Chuck’s too damned important to risk like that and he’s too attached to be able to sit back and let the General or anybody else plan on doing away with Chuck once he’s no longer immediately useful. When it comes down to it, if he has to, Bryce will put his plans in motion and no one will see or hear of Bryce Larkin or Chuck Bartowski ever again. Maybe if he’s lucky, he’ll even be able to stop counting on Chuck’s obliviousness to keep him (relatively) happy and safe. He’d like to see Chuck’s face when he realizes which meaning of the word _t’hy’la_ it is that Bryce would be using, to describe what Chuck is to him. It’d be nice to be able finally stop running from that.

Besides, Chuck’s already been needlessly put in harm’s way so many times since he became the Intersect that it’s kind of a miracle he’s made it through in once piece so far. Hell, _Fulcrum_ had Chuck, once – _and_ Sarah _and_ Major Casey – and put God knows what of their intelligence files and filthy little secrets into Chuck’s head, and it was essentially Chuck who had to get them all out again (granted, with a little help from the Major). Chuck isn’t an agent and he shouldn’t be anywhere near such potentially dangerous situations – as the Intersect alone, he’s far too valuable to risk losing. And for who and what he is, as a human being, Chuck is damn well priceless, irreplaceable – but that doesn’t seem to stop the moron twins who’s supposed to be keeping him safe from choosing ridiculously dangerous missions, dragging Chuck along with them, and doing their damnedest to get him (and them) killed. In Bryce’s opinion, the only even semi good, decent thing those two idiots have done for Chuck was to arrange for him to get credit for those last twelve specific college credits he needed to finish his degree.

 _That_ was an actual act of kindness as well as being of useful practicality and frankly he’s surprised as hell that it occurred to them. In fact, he rather suspects they got the idea from that recording that explained just what Bryce did to Chuck, at Stanford, to try to keep the Agency away from him. And he’s also fairly certain it came up in the debriefing he had with the General on the subject of why he sent the Intersect to Chuck. He’s pretty sure he mentioned that Chuck couldn’t get his diploma when Stanford kicked him out not because he was short of credits but because he was short of the specific number of highly specialized credits required for a major in a specific field of study, and Stanford no longer gave out simple liberal arts degrees with no major focus for a field of study. Chuck had _plenty_ of credits: between all the classes he tested out of and all the language courses he received credit for placing above, he had credits up the wazoo, almost enough for two people to get their degrees from. No, Chuck’s problem was that he loved everything – anything that caught his eye, his mind, his fancy, he took, just for the hell of it – and it showed in the wide spread of subjects he’d dabbled in.

Chuck always planned on being a triple major – computer science, applied mathematics, and engineering – but in the meantime he wracked up credits towards nine different minors, half a dozen of them in a foreign language (Latin, German, Japanese, Hebrew, Greek, and Mandarin, with a self-taught smattering of Cantonese and more than passing acquaintance with all of the other Romance languages), and basically tested out of almost everything required for another handful of different minors, finishing most of them by signing up for seminar-style classes, reading the required texts, showing up for the tests, and turning in homework electronically, without ever bothering to show up for class otherwise. He’d needed four more classes at three credit hours apiece to finish his three chosen majors and had signed up for those four plus another three classes that would’ve added a seventh language minor (French) and an English literature minor to his repertoire when Bryce panicked and framed him for cheating and he got thrown out of Stanford.

Casey and Sarah arranging for Chuck to finally get his degree had not only been an act of kindness but a way for Chuck to get some kind of closure, and, for that, Bryce is actually quite grateful . . . though it won’t keep him from shooting them both, if it should come down to it, if there’s no other way for him to get Chuck safely away from them. If possible, if it came down to that, he would try to avoid making the shots fatal, because he is glad that they helped Chuck get the degree he deserved. It doesn’t make Bryce feel any less guilty, for taking away the graduation Chuck should have had, but he’s fairly sure that it probably makes Chuck feel better, and really that’s all that matters. (Plus, it should help, if he has to take Chuck and go into hiding with him. That Charles Carmichael persona Chuck’s so fond of will be a lot easier to embellish upon, with some actual credentials to work with.) He doesn’t want Chuck to hurt. The only reason he hasn’t stolen Chuck away already is because it would hurt Chuck to lose Ellie and Awesome and Morgan and the Buy More and even Casey and Sarah like that.

No matter what Bryce might want to do, he’ll give Chuck as long as he possibly can, to keep his illusion of a normal life. He’ll wait for him to get used to the idea of being unordinary, of being truly extraordinary, before he acts, if he can, if Fulcrum and the other evil bastards out there will just cooperate long enough to give him enough time. The missions may be insanely dangerous, but they’re reteaching Chuck the self-confidence and hope and sense of worth that Bryce fought so hard to try to give him, at Stanford. And the longer he’s out and about Casey and Sarah, the more he has his eyes opened to the way the Agency and the military work – as well as its agents – and the more disillusioned he’ll become with his less than equal status, on Team Bartowski. Bryce’s seen signs of it already. Chuck wants to think the world of Sarah, but the more she hurts him, the more clearly he sees her – the _real_ her, the bitch mistress of a million cons and masks with not a genuine unwavering emotion within her. It hurts, to see Chuck being stripped a little more each day of that faith and loyalty, but it’s _necessary_. The less Chuck comes to absolutely trust in and rely upon his handlers, the easier it’ll be on him, in the long run, to be separated from them.

Ideally, Bryce will be able to take over as Chuck’s handler because Sarah’s disguise will slip far enough that Chuck will no longer be able to function with her as one of his handlers, and, together, they will figure out a way to transition Chuck to a life where he will be Bryce’s partner, in every since of the word, and he will protect Chuck as an asset should be and guide him in his role as the Intersect so that they an continue to safeguard the country – and the world – without having to worry about Chuck being found out by his family or friends and without demanding that he give them all up entirely, either. Casey would become superfluous and be dismissed to another mission while Bryce and Chuck go on to make a name and a life for themselves as a true team, and Chuck would be seen to be moving on to bigger and better things with the love of his life while still being able to come back to the old neighborhood for the occasional visits and for holidays. _Ideally._ Of course, things involving Chuck rarely seem to go as planned, so he has plenty of other plans – and contingency schemes and backups and such – for making sure he eventually ends up with Chuck himself, regardless of what else might happen.

Bryce refuses to give up Chuck forever and he’s sure as hell not going to run from his feelings for Chuck for forever, either. Chuck deserves to know the truth – the _full_ truth – and to be protected by someone who truly cares for him, someone to whom it would be an honor (not a mission and not a burden) to devote his life to guarding Chuck and who would not only be willing but glad to give up his life, in exchange for Chuck’s continued safety. Casey may be growing fond of Chuck (in spite of himself, of course. Bryce finds it imminently amusing that even a hard-ass burnout like John Casey isn’t fully immune to Chuck’s wide-eyed charm), but Chuck will never be much more than a mission to him – granted, perhaps, a good mission, a mission wherein an important asset is gradually being groomed towards status as a qualified field agent – and, if he were ordered to do so, he would not hesitate to hurt Chuck. If it came down to it, there’s perhaps a fifty-fifty chance Casey would continue to follow orders, even if he were commanded to take Chuck out.

And as for Sarah . . . well, Sarah Walker may give a good impression of a woman falling unwittingly and unwillingly in love, but that’s what she _does_. She’s a con artist. A very _good_ con artist. Not the best in the world – witness the many times she has, in her obtuseness and her selfishness, nearly succeeded in turning Chuck away from her – but good enough that Chuck, with his nearly bottomless optimism and faith in the innate goodness of people, has been able to fool himself into believing that she might just actually care about him as an individual and not just an asset for a long term mission. That faith is wearing awfully thin, though, of late, and Bryce isn’t above taking advantage of Sarah’s stupidity, when it comes to Chuck. If she’s too much of an idiot to know that lying to Chuck, not caring about the well-being of his family and friends, and being generally uncaring of or even cruel towards others is the quickest way to lose Chuck’s regard, drive him away, and otherwise win his enmity, then Bryce surely isn’t going to be the one to tell her. Chuck’s suspected that he likes Sarah and cares about her safety and happiness a lot more than she does for him pretty much since the beginning.

A few more major screw ups – like lying to him about killing that Fulcrum agent, failing to care whether or not Morgan has been (accidentally) targeted by the Triad, failing to understand how important it is for him to be able to spend holidays (especially Mother’s Day and Christmas) with Ellie, and failing to take Chuck seriously about, well, just about everything important to him (if she’d only listened to Chuck, for once, his father probably wouldn’t’ve been captured by Fulcrum!)– and Sarah will lose him. He’ll start comparing her to Jill and having to admit that their behavior isn’t all that different and that Sarah is, essentially, just using him. Maybe warning him off of "distracting" her will keep that from happening quite so quickly, but eventually it’ll happen, one way or another, and Chuck needs the additional distance between them _now_. He’s too close to her to really be able to see her clearly. The added distance will only help.

Bryce hates to hurt Chuck like this, by making him think that Bryce and Sarah still have feelings for one another and that she can’t afford to indulge in her attachment to either one of them right now – not if she wants to be able to do her job and not get shot or captured or worse – but the revelation that Sarah doesn’t really care two shakes for anyone but herself (no matter how hard she might try to make herself learn how to really care about someone – anyone! – else) and that Bryce and Chuck are both little more than the means to a useful end for her will have that much more power, when the epiphany comes, if Chuck thinks she actually cares enough for either or both of them now to be potentially fatally distracted by her feelings and by being torn between them.

Right now, Chuck sees Sarah as something in between a fatally tragic heroine and a misguided victim of her own loyalties, torn between love for a man (i.e., Bryce) who had seemed to use her for his own treacherously nefarious ends but actually had been ordered to do so and in fact seems to care for her a great deal and wants to be with her (enough to ask her to go into hiding with him and to be his partner again, in apparently every sense of the word) and an unprofessional, unwanted, dangerous growing affection for and attachment to the object of her current mission, the asset known as the human Intersect (namely, Chuck). As soon as he realizes that Sarah is neither the victim of her job nor a tragic heroine fighting against a love she cannot, in good conscience act upon, Bryce rather imagines that it’ll be time for him to start planning how to come clean about his own less than appropriate feelings for his best friend. After that, he’s sure everything will be okay. One way or another.

Even if Chuck doesn’t feel the same way about Bryce (and why should he? Chuck’s never shown any sign of being aught but a solid one on the Kinsey scale, whereas Bryce is a very slippery three-ish. And Bryce ruined Chuck’s life. _Twice._ Because he loved him and it made him stupid enough to make some pretty damn dreadful decisions about how best to protect his friend and beloved. All in all, odds are against him getting the kind of happily ever after ending he wants, with Chuck. But then again, Chuck has always been surprising – tending to do what’s least expected, in some cases – and he has a very open mind and he did say, once – arguing about it for some length – that he cared more about being able to relate to and get along with and really love someone as an individual than what somebody looked like, when it came to love . . . So Chuck might surprise him. If he’ll unbend enough to let Bryce honestly attempt to really explain and to make everything up to him and to, well, woo him, for lack of a better word, Bryce may very well have a chance, after all), Bryce is determined to be the one to both keep Chuck safe and to see to it that he reaches his full potential, either as the human Intersect or just as Chuck. (His father, after all, may be able to take the Intersect out of Chuck’s head, and if he still wants it out, Bryce isn’t going to be the one to try to tell them that they can’t do it. Chuck’s father is _Orion_ , for pity’s sake! Like he’s going to try to tell the man _no_ about anything, especially if it’s something that Chuck also wants!).

It’s only a matter of time, as far as Bryce is concerned. And then . . . well, then he will not only be able to see about putting things right between them again, but about coming clean as to just why he cares so much about Chuck that, for years, he had to deliberately stop himself from learning any kind of Klingon endearments, so he could avoid the temptation of declaring his love for all the world to hear and bedamned to the consequences.

 _QamuSHáqu’_ and _bangwI’ SoH_ have a nice sound to them. So does _t’hy’la_.

Hopefully, Chuck will come to agree with him about all three things.

 

 

 

*********

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Clarification Notes: 1).** This story has already been posted once, in an earlier, slightly shorter form. I’ve tinkered with it sufficiently, in the process of reading it over to make sure my second _Chuck_ story would fit with and flow from the events and motivations and characterizations established in this first _Chuck_ story of mine, that I thought I should repost it, since a couple of the additions/alterations are sizable enough to be important. I consider this the first of several fanfics that all belong to the same AU ’verse wherein Daniel-Bryce-Chuck reign OT3 supreme.
> 
>  **2.)** Readers should probably be aware that I am roughly estimating (guestimating might be a better word) the original publication date for most of my shorter non-SW works (and indeed most of my shorter stories in general, especially the ones written over a long period of time), based on when I roughed out notes for them in the story notebooks I carry everywhere with me and when I can recall having worked on certain groups of characters in various fandoms. The year should be accurate (or close to it, anyway, though in the case of this particular story, I have to warn y'all that the handwritten draft could be up to or beyond even a year older than the date I've actually put on this, since I can't remember when I first put it up online anymore - it went straight to ff.net and that account no longer even exists - and I know that I didn't start putting my other _Chuck_ stories on the web until around the date that I've assigned to this for publication, so I thought that this might be the safer date to choose), but the month might be off and the day will almost certainly be randomly chosen, since the online account I had originally posted many of these stories to no longer exists. I tend to go back and edit things that are in series whenever I get the time or a new idea causes me to have to make room for something else plot-wise, and odds are good that a story could have been edited for typos as recently as the day of its posting here, but the original version will likely be much older and fairly close to the publication date that I attach to it, if anyone's curious!


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